Pharaoh and his officials are going to change their minds about allowing the Israelites to leave, but first we are going to discuss how the hardness of Pharaoh's heart and his pursuit of the Israelites causes the Lord to, as He said in yesterday's passage, "gain glory for Myself". (Exodus 14:4)
It's easy for us to see how the Lord gains glory from people's soft-heartedness. A person who loves and serves and obeys the Lord brings honor and glory to His name as they live according to His principles and as they set a godly example for others. But what about the person who refuses to serve the Lord? What about the person who is hard-hearted and cruel toward his fellow man? How is the Lord glorified in that?
Well, we'll start by saying that the Lord never wants anyone to be godless and cruel. But He's able to weave even such things as that into the tapestry of His plans. For example, you'll recall how Joseph's brothers hated him and sold him into slavery. They sinned grievously against him, yet years later Joseph said to his brothers, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Genesis 50:20) The Lord didn't cause Joseph's brothers to hate him and mistreat him, but He knew they would sin against Joseph and in His omniscience and wisdom He wove these men's wickedness into His plans to save many people from the coming seven-year famine. God allowed Joseph to be sold into slavery where he would end up in Egypt and eventually become second-in-command to the man who was king in those days. This put Joseph in a position to lead the nation (through his relationship with the Lord who guided him) through the famine and to save not only untold numbers of Egyptian lives but the lives of his own family and likely other tribes who lived in the surrounding areas. God was glorified by the way He turned Joseph's misfortune into a blessing. He was also glorified by the way Joseph's brothers repented of and apologized for their sins against him when they were reunited with him in Egypt.
Pharaoh is never going to repent, as far as we know, but the Lord will still be glorified when He triumphs over Pharaoh and his army and leads the Israelites across the Red Sea bed on dry ground. The Lord has already shown His great power in Egypt by bringing a plague every time Pharaoh refused to let the people go. We've already seen that some of the Egyptians came to fear God. (Whether or not they worshiped Him, they certainly had to admit He exists and is a God whom no one should try to oppose.) The faith of the Israelites was strengthened when they witnessed the plagues the Lord brought, especially since the plagues spared the Israelites but touched all the Egyptians all around them. The Lord's name was exalted by what He did in Egypt and by those who acknowledged His existence and great power. Now, when Pharaoh and his army set out in pursuit of the Israelites, the Lord will perform one of the most famous miracles of the Bible and His people Israel will behold His power and give glory to the name of the One who fights for them. The people back in Egypt, who will soon hear of the defeat and death of Pharaoh's soldiers at the Red Sea, will no doubt tremble at the mention of the name of Israel's God. Some may even turn to Him, but even if they do not, they won't be able to dismiss Him from their minds. They won't be able to say that the God of Israel is not real and that He does not act on behalf of those who love and serve Him. This is how God gets glory from Pharaoh's hard-hearted disobedience. The Lord didn't make Pharaoh be the kind of man he is, but the Lord is able to use Pharaoh's sinful stubbornness to prove to many people that He is God and that the king is not---and neither are the false gods of Egypt.
I once was hard-hearted toward the Lord even though I was brought up in church. Thanks to my Christian mother, I can't recall a time early enough in my life when I didn't know the basic facts of the gospel, and yet I wanted little to do with Him until the summer I was twenty-two. For years I rejected His attempts to bring me into the fold while I ran about living in disobedience to Him. I actually relished the idea of living in opposition to all the things I'd been taught about godly living. But a day came when I couldn't run from Him anymore---when I didn't want to run from Him anymore---and His name was glorified by the way He changed me. Am I perfect? No, and I never will be while I live in this frail mortal body, but thanks be to God I'm not who I used to be! I was literally unable to change myself even if I'd wanted to, but when I gave my heart to the Lord, He changed me. All the glory for that is His. I've known a number of people whom He's changed from night into day. Their transformation was stunning and undeniably miraculous. They were once so hard-hearted and cruel and involved in so much desperate sin that nothing short of a miracle could have made them who they are today. So when we look back on the type of person I used to be, or when we look back on who these people I'm speaking of used to be, or when we look back at who you used to be, we see that God is glorified when the hard-heartedness of our past is compared to the softness of our hearts now.
When Pharaoh's son died, he briefly weakened in his resolve to keep the Israelites as slaves, but now several days have passed and he regrets showing any weakness. He regrets showing any fear of Almighty God. He and his wealthy cronies are looking around them thinking about how now they're going to have to pay people to do the labor in Egypt that was previously done by forcing the Israelites into slavery. This is unacceptable to them. Their country already lies in shambles and it's going to take a number of years to recover economically from the plagues. It will take even longer if they have to pay wages to laborers or if they have to purchase slaves from other nations. They decide to get their free workforce back. "When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, 'What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!' So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them." (Exodus 14:5-7)
This army plans to trap the Israelites, surround them, and take them captive. The soldiers no doubt intend to kill anyone who tries to fight back. As we said yesterday, the Israelites are going to find themselves caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, as the saying goes. And their situation will look hopeless. But no situation is hopeless when God is in it, and He is going to be there in a great and mighty way, and no man or woman or child will have to lift a finger against the army coming toward them. God will rescue His people. There are times in the Bible (and in our own lives) when God allows believers to participate in their own rescue---when they must engage in battle while He battles alongside them. But there are other times when He does all the work and simply says to His children, "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10), and when He says, "You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm, and see the deliverance the Lord will give you." (2 Chronicles 20:17a) The Red Sea is a place where the Lord will say, "You will not have to fight this battle."
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